BBC Radio Ulster
TFTD Sunday 3rd March 2024
St David – listen again here
This summer, I’m looking forward to going on holiday to a place I’ve never been before; to Pembrokeshire in South Wales. Last Friday was St David’s day; the patron saint of Wales, who lived and eventually died and buried around the year 600 in the place now known as UK’s smallest city, St David’s.
David was a native Welshman, and he lived a simple shepherds existance drinking only water and eating only bread, salt, and vegetables, hence Wales’s national symbol being the leek.
Seemingly his last words were “Be joyful and keep your faith. Do the little things in life that you have seen me do and heard about” and from that comes the well-known Welsh saying! “Do the little things in life”.
It was Jesus, David’s mentor and saviour who some decades before had said “Whoever gives someone who is humble in rank or influence even a cup of cold water to drink because they are my disciple, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward”. Doing the little things in life matters because when a person can be trusted with small, simple things, it is likely that they can be trusted with the more complex, big ones as well.
I love the story about another man called David, King David in the Bible who also started off as a shepherd boy, looking after and caring for his flock of sheep. That was God’s vital preparation time for that moment when David would be called upon to care for and shepherd his nation!
I wonder what little things God may have been entrusted to you and to me today. The care for a fragile child or sick relative? The unglamorous task of growing, harvesting, or processing vegetables for people to eat? The giving of a cup of tea to someone in need? “Be joyful and keep your faith” said the patron saint of Wales” And do the little things in life”.